- Joined
- Oct 15, 2020
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I've been engaging in debates about the Roe decision (though rarely on abortion itself) since I first started participating in online political debate forums in the pre-Internet days (think CompuServe and Hayes modems). From all this experience, and for the most part, I know the arguments the Roe zealots are going to make before they make them. But something has changed this week.
While the same flawed arguments are still being made, at least three times this week I've had Roe defenders say, in so many words, "Fine, I've had enough. I'm leaving," and they do. That almost never happened before. Just now it dawned on me that what I think I'm seeing is an observation I read recently coming true.
For the first time in 50 years, the Roe-crowd is facing the prospect of having to make a cogent, well reasoned argument in favor of abortion rights and persuade others. That's new. Their arguments have not changed. For the most part these folks still can't get past thinking it's all about privacy and continue to blithely ignore the crux of the issue is a still-disputed legal definition of human life. But when these folks hit their inevitable, logical dead ends before this week, they always had the "Well, abortion is a Constitutional right so I win" mentality. Now, they no longer do, they're arguments have to stand on their own with no Roe crutch, and they're simply not up to the task.
It's all rather fascinating.
While the same flawed arguments are still being made, at least three times this week I've had Roe defenders say, in so many words, "Fine, I've had enough. I'm leaving," and they do. That almost never happened before. Just now it dawned on me that what I think I'm seeing is an observation I read recently coming true.
For the first time in 50 years, the Roe-crowd is facing the prospect of having to make a cogent, well reasoned argument in favor of abortion rights and persuade others. That's new. Their arguments have not changed. For the most part these folks still can't get past thinking it's all about privacy and continue to blithely ignore the crux of the issue is a still-disputed legal definition of human life. But when these folks hit their inevitable, logical dead ends before this week, they always had the "Well, abortion is a Constitutional right so I win" mentality. Now, they no longer do, they're arguments have to stand on their own with no Roe crutch, and they're simply not up to the task.
It's all rather fascinating.